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Last week I wrote a post that brought the notion of male persistence and female coyness up for debate. I questioned whether there might be a subconscious, or otherwise, “cat and mouse” game at play. Then this weekend I caught my very own subconscious playing tricks on me. There I was, at a bar, in the presence of a boy-that’s-a-friend who is good-looking. I was flirting with him (and he was flirting with me) and we started dancing with each other. And I noticed that I kept playfully pushing him away with an accompanying giggle, as if to say, “Oh, you! You stop that!” But the thing is, I didn’t really want him to stop that. Why was I pushing away his advances? Because to “give in” to him so quickly, so easily, would mean I was just “being had.” Ah-ha! And so I had caught myself playing into this illogical dynamic. I said to myself, “Fuck that; don’t be coy. If you want it, let it happen.” So I did.We danced, we kissed, I kissed him, and I enjoyed it. And the next day I felt strange. A new experience for me. But I oddly found comfort in the fluidity of it all: how it meant something and nothing for our friendship all at once, how it separated the power of sex from my emotions. I had, after all, just kissed a boy-that’s-a-friend-friend who is good-looking; but without that “X-Factor” it didn’t mean much. Perhaps, above all, it was just freeing to replace that internal game of resistance with a dialogue of encouragement to pursue my own desires. It made the nature of intimacy within my control. Instead of wondering how far someone’s persistence might lead me, I could become actively aware of my own wants with clear bounds and a conversation that wouldn’t go something like this:HIM: Yes
ME: No
HIM: Yes? Last time “No” meant “Yes.”
ME: Yeah, no.
HIM: Okay, so yes.